On this episode of the Ale Evangelist Show, Rodbo, Drew, and the Scotsman enjoy a rare treat: A side-by-side tasting of a 2013 and 2017 Brother Thelonius Belgian Dark Strong! The rich malty goodness only gets better with age, and this one has definitely improved.

The guys also talk about whether it’s a problem that AB InBev has purchased a minority stake in a popular beer rating website, RateBeer. I think you can guess how they feel about this.

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This beer is a legend for a reason, folks. If you can find it, you definitely want to check this one out!

They’re not going to stand for this kind of crony capitalism and today the Ale Evangelist Show is a soapbox. The Scotsman outlines why he doesn’t buy ABInBev beers and why he doesn’t think you should either.

The guys also drink Stone Xocoveza and Russian River’s legendary Pliny the Elder on this angry episode of the Ale Evangelist Show.

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I ran across this article, and have been noodling its ramifications. I usually get some grief when I tell people I won’t support ABInBev in any way, shape, or form. When I tell people I won’t buy Goose Island, Golden Road, or Elysian Brewing, no matter how good those beers remain, I am usually given some line about “as long as the beer is good, I’ll drink it.” And then I’m told I’m inconsistent because I’ll drink Lagunitas or Ballast Point even though they’re no longer craft. I am very consistent and this article explains why. Continue reading →

If you’re wondering what this means for the increasingly-irrelevantly-named market segment of craft beer, you’re not alone. As the article mentions, Spiros Malandrakis doesn’t think it’ll make much of a difference:

[It] will remain largely irrelevant to the scores of millennials seeking alternatives to big beer’s offerings.

While this will almost certainly be the case in the immediate future, it remains to be seen how greatly such a deal will affect consumer choice in the long term. With AB and Miller snatching up craft breweries in the last few years, it is not entirely inconceivable that distributors will return to a time when 100% of their offerings were ABInBev-Miller selections. ABInBev has not shown any squeamishness in the past in using their tremendous clout to crowd out alternatives and smaller breweries. When they have a more diverse portfolio to offer, reasons to resist the juggernaut’s attempt to control every tier of the market will dwindle.

Did you see the numbers in that article?? The two breweries combined do annual sales of **$55 billion**!! That is a force to be reckoned with. With craft beer being the only segment of the beer market growing these days, you can bet a sizeable chunk of that revenue will be used to snatch up more and more smaller breweries to snag some of that market. What will that mean for the future of craft brewing?

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